Cancer detection going for gold
12 May 2005 by Evoluted New Media
Cancer detection could be made much easier by using gold nanoparticles say scientists.
Cancer detection could be made much easier by using gold nanoparticles say scientists.
By binding gold nanoparticles to a specific antibody for cancer cells, the team at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) report that instant results can be gained from simply spraying sample tissue.
“Gold nanoparticles are very good at scattering and absorbing light,” said Mostafa El-Sayed, director of the Laser Dyanamics Laboratory and chemistry professor at Georgia Tech. “We wanted to see if we could harness that scattering property in a living cell to make cancer detection easier. So far, the results are extremely promising.”
Gold labelled cancer cells.
Many cancer cells have a protein, known as Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EFGR), all over their surface, while healthy cells typically do not express the protein as strongly. By conjugating the gold nanoparticles to an antibody for EFGR, researchers were able to get the nanoparticles to attach themselves to the cancer cells.
The team found that the gold nanoparticles have 600 % greater affinity for cancer cells than for non-cancerous cells.
“If you add this conjugated nanoparticle solution to healthy cells and cancerous cells and you look at the image, you can tell with a simple microscope that the whole cancer cell is shining,” said El-Sayed. ”With this technique, if you see a well defined cell glowing, that’s cancer.”
